editor’s desk

W. Conard Holton
Associate Publisher/

Editor in Chief
cholton@pennwell.com

Media for the long haul

Although I sometimes answer the question, “How long have you been with Laser Focus World?” with
the quip, “Forever!” it’s actually been since 1997. I was hired as a senior editor by then Group Editorial Director Jeff Bairstow and Executive Editor Heather Messenger. At the time, I didn’t understand the
magazine’s long editorial heritage covering the latest developments in photonics (which we called optoelectronics). Nor could I imagine how we would be riding the economic and digital tides of the 21st
century. Furthermore, in what seemed like very quick order, Heather suffered a tragic death; Jeff left the
company and began his long running “In my view” column on the back page; Steve Anderson became
editor in chief; and I took on an additional role heading WDM Solutions, a spinoff that rode the telecom
bubble up, down, and out.

I’m describing this tumult to help convey one important fact—that through it all, the magazine and
Internet entity known as Laser Focus World prospered. The editors often joked that no one in his or her
right mind would create a trade magazine like Laser Focus World now because the field of photonics is
so diverse. It is not really a cohesive “industry” at all, and it has far too many small companies and too
few large ones to support an advertising-based publication.

In fact, these elements have proved the basis of our longevity while other trade magazines—and
high-tech industries—have come and gone. So as part of celebrating our 50 years in publishing, I would
like to thank our past editorial leaders for guiding this crazy idea: Bill Bushor (founding editor), Howard
Rausch, John Camuso, Morris Levitt, Lewis Holmes, Jeff Bairstow, Heather Messenger, and Steve Anderson.

For the current issue, our former managing editor and long-time contributor, Jeff Hecht, continues
his series celebrating each major category of technologies and products as we have covered them over
the years and looking ahead. His topic this month is solid-state lasers (see page 23), and there’s no doubt
we’ve come a very long way from that first glimmer of laser light in a ruby.